


way out of sync from the beginning

by tamaraface



Category: Teen Wolf (TV), The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Time Traveler's Wife, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-25
Updated: 2014-02-25
Packaged: 2018-01-13 17:34:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1235125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamaraface/pseuds/tamaraface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's it like? Being pulled in and out and around her own time with no discernible direction, no control? It's incredible. It's terrible. It's impossible and it's unpredictable and it happens, over and over again. She cannot help where she ends up. She can't help when she leaves. There is no anticipating it, no stopping it, there is nothing but this: she will go and go often. She can only hope that when she goes, where she goes, Lydia will be there waiting.</p><p>aka, the Time Traveler's Wife AU nobody wanted or asked for! You're welcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	way out of sync from the beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [vociferocity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vociferocity/gifts).



> So, vociferocity asked for an Allydia AU and this is definitely that? Somehow I ended up with some 4,000 words and still didn't manage to work in the werewolves. Sorry?
> 
> title from "Slow Show" by The National.

_What's it like? Being pulled in and out and around her own time with no discernible direction, no control? It's incredible. It's terrible. It's impossible and it's unpredictable and it happens, over and over again. She cannot help where she ends up. She can't help when she leaves. There is no anticipating it, no stopping it, there is nothing but this: she will go and go often. She can only hope that when she goes, where she goes, Lydia will be there waiting._

 

\--

**Allison is 19 and Lydia is 11**

Allison is a trained athlete, with finely honed environmental awareness. So, when the tiny-heeled, impossibly small, yet unmistakable patent leather pump whizzes past her head, Allison doesn't startle. Much.

 

"I'll throw the other one," is the grave warning Allison gets. She doesn't doubt it. Instead she holds out a hand, a gesture of surrender, one she knows can be seen around the tree she's hiding behind.

 

"Easy," Allison calls. "I'm not going to hurt you."

 

"Then _why_ are you lurking around the woods in the middle of the night?"

 

"I wasn't _lurking._ I'm lost," Allison says, which is true enough. "And kind of embarrassed. I don't have any clothes on."

 

There is a pause. Allison mentally runs through a list of possible ways to proceed, trying to find an excuse that is the most believable and the least off-putting. _I'm streaking through the preserve on a dare, I'm a nudist out on a nature hike, I'm a time-traveler from your future--_ Lydia's expensive and tiny pea coat lands to Allison's right before she can decide. It's much too small for Allison to wear, but she wraps it around herself like a bath towel and steps out from behind the tree.

 

Lydia, in front of her, is just over half Allison's height, with her little fists clenched and her jaw set. She's the youngest Allison's ever seen her and Allison's gathered rather quickly that this is the first time they've met. For Lydia, anyway.

 

"I'm going to need you to wash that before you return it," Lydia tells her, her frown in place and tone resolute. "It's dry clean only."

 

Allison snorts.

 

"What exactly are you doing here again?"

 

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

 

"Try me," Lydia says. She crosses her arms now, schools her expression into one of exasperation and entitlement.

 

Lydia, pint-sized and impatient and magnificent, purses her lips and quirks an eyebrow, expectant. Allison feels a smile beginning at the corner of her mouth, because Lydia, her Lydia, no matter where or when, had never been one to let anything go without a thorough and plausible explanation.

 

Allison huffs a breath and draws the little coat more tightly around her and Lydia begins to tap one foot, waiting, as ever.

 

"My name is Allison. I can travel through time. And space, I guess. Technically."

 

Lydia says nothing. Then: "Are you high?"

 

"I can prove it."

 

"No, you can't," Lydia insists. She takes a step back from Allison, eyes wary and narrow. "Because no one can. Because it's impossible. And ridiculous."

 

"Your name is Lydia Martin, you're eleven, your favorite movie is _The Notebook_ , but you also love _The Sound of Music_ even though it’s a little campy and you don’t believe anyone could’ve made all those kids functional and comfortable outfits out of curtains. Your parents just got you a puppy and you named her Prada, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that they’re divorcing."

 

"That doesn't prove anything," Lydia considers for a moment and Allison reads doubt all over her face, finds herself at a loss as to how to interpret it. Lydia's eyes sharpen then, when they meet Allison's. "Except maybe that you're a stalker with access to privileged information. Creep much?"

 

Allison's head is starting to feel a bit fuzzy. Like a good buzz after too many wine coolers, or an adrenaline crash after a long run. A tingling starts at the tips of her fingers and she curls them tighter around the bunched wool she's swaddled in. Now, when she looks up again, Lydia's face is something surprised and hopeful and glorious. 

 

"I'm going now, but I'll be back soon, promise--" Allison manages at least that before everything slips away into a haze of color, and then nothing. The last thing she sees is Lydia, a small hand reaching out.

 

\--

 

_“I didn’t fall in love with you. I walked into love with you, with my eyes wide open, choosing to take every step along the way. I do believe in fate and destiny, but I also believe we are only fated to do the things that we’d choose anyway. And I’d choose you; in a hundred lifetimes, in a hundred worlds, in any version of reality, I’d find you and I’d choose you.”_

from _The Chaos of Stars_ by Kiersten White

 

\--

 

**Lydia is 15 and Allison is 16**

Lydia Martin, at fifteen, considers herself to be a fairly-to moderately-patient person. The first day of her sophomore year of high school, she carries her head high, designer purse aloft, and walks into the building like she owns it. She does not pick a fight with Jackson when he brings her a full-fat latte with whip when she specifically asked for a dry cappuccino with skim, two Splenda, extra foam. She does not verbally eviscerate Sheriff Stilinski's son when he tries to make contact in full view of the student body. She also doesn't make a scene when she's placed in French II by a well-meaning, if over-worked guidance counselor. Lydia only insists—politely, but firmly—that she be enrolled in Latin instead. She does wonder for a moment if her time would be better spent on Archaic Latin; Lydia sees herself tiring of Classical Latin quickly.

 

Patience, Lydia supposes, a virtue. One she's cultivated and hewed and perfected, like anything else she attempts. It is only by the grace of her immutable patience that Lydia is able to maintain her calm when she is on her way to her AP Chem Lab and nearly walks into an open locker door because she sees a mane of brown hair over slight, leather-clad shoulders on a girl just outside the window. She’s sitting on a bench in front of the school's double doors rifling through her bag and Lydia would recognize Allison anywhere. If Lydia stumbles a bit, if she stutters mid-sentence, she covers it well with a flip of her brilliant red hair and a toss of her shoulders.

 

She has an Excel file on her computer at home with times, dates, and locations of each and every time Allison has travelled to her since Lydia was eleven. Lydia has made certain that she is always free to make her way into the clearing about two miles into the Beacon Hills preserve for each of these dates. Even if it’s meant missing class, or games, or once her own birthday party. She’s always there first, always with clothes and a blanket and water and non-perishable snacks.

 

If she’s nervous, if she’s a bit anxious, if there are butterflies in her stomach and a racing pulse at her throat, Lydia doesn’t think twice about it. She thinks, instead, about properly calibrating her Bunsen burner. Maybe a winsome compliment for Allison's jacket.

 

\--

 

_Even though each time, I know I’ll see you again, I always wonder_

_is this the last time?_

_Is that really you?_

_And what if you’re already perfectly happy_

_without me? Ah, but I don’t blame you; I’ll never burn as brilliantly as_

_you. It’s only fair_

_that I should be the one_

_to chase you across ten, twenty-five, a hundred lifetimes_

_until I find the one where you’ll return to me._

 

from _25 Lives_ by tongari

 

\--

 

**Allison is 17 and Lydia is 14**

 

It takes a few moments, but slowly, eventually, Allison is able to breathe properly again. She takes a second or two to run through her mental checklist (both arms, both legs, no concussion, no gaping wounds; check, check, check), ticking off each item one by one before she rolls over or attempts to open her eyes. It isn't like waking up. Except for when it is. Mostly, though, it's being mid-sentence or even mid-thought, and then looking up and realizing you're in a different where, usually, and an entirely different when. It's disorienting, to say the least. The _very_ least. Allison pretends it's something she'll get used to, something she'll "come to terms with," or whatever. It's not. She hasn't. It is just what it is, and what it is is this: occasionally-and all too often-Allison travels in time, and it's totally inconvenient and not at all as cool as it sounds.

 

Now, now Allison is satisfied that she hasn't broken anything, isn't bleeding profusely from anywhere, and is at least somewhere semi-secluded. (Check, check, check)

 

"Took you long enough."

 

If Allison's sudden intake of breath sounds like a gasp of surprise, it's only because she's a little winded. Chrono-displacement will do that to a girl.

 

"I was about ready to leave."

 

Allison looks over in the direction of the voice and finds an entirely unamused Lydia Martin, posing—gracefully, and ridiculously so—against a tree. Small and commanding, Lydia eyes Allison without a shred of embarrassment, looks almost disappointed, and Allison is suddenly incredibly aware of her own nakedness.

 

The trouble with time-travel (apart from the nausea and headaches and vertigo and _danger_ ) is that you can't take anything with you when you go. Not a driver's license or bottle of water or even the clothes on your back. You arrive wherever time deposits you as clueless and naked as the day you were born, and you return the same way.

 

"Lydia," Allison says. The last syllable is inflected upwards, like a question, like Allison isn't sure. When, really, if there's anything she's ever been sure of it's Lydia Martin.

 

"Obviously." Lydia rocks forward on her heels as Allison sits up, draws her knees to her chest, wraps her arms around them. "Who else?"

 

Allison says nothing, only watches as Lydia unzips a carefully packed duffel bag from seemingly nowhere to extract a flannel bathrobe. She tosses it at Allison and Allison snatches it out of the air on reflex. She pulls the robe on quickly, grateful for something substantial to cover herself with. Lydia is watching her like she might disappear at any moment. She’s tense and alert, as if she could reach out and stop Allison the instant she starts to fade away. Something inside Allison starts at that, and again when she catches Lydia's gaze dropping to her bare chest, her belly, between her legs, before jumping back up to her mouth and settling there. Allison licks her lips and watches Lydia watch her do it.

 

"How old are you?" Allison cinches the belt tight around her waist and rolls onto her knees. She sweeps the bottom of the robe beneath her, like she might a skirt or a summer dress, and sits back again on her ankles. Allison folds her hands in her lap and tries not to fidget as she waits for an answer.

 

Lydia is quiet for a few moments, makes a point of carefully unpacking, unfolding, and arranging a blanket on the ground before sitting herself delicately atop it. She doesn’t invite Allison to join her.

 

"It's October 21st, 2009," is what Lydia eventually says when she’s settled. Their knees are inches apart when Allison glances down. When she looks up again Lydia’s eyes are focused and unyielding. Allison quirks an eyebrow. Lydia lifts her chin: "Do the math."

 

"Math was never really my strong suit."

 

"No, it wasn’t,” Lydia agrees, but it’s sharp and resentful and confusing to Allison.

 

“Everything okay?” Allison hedges carefully. Lydia wasn’t generally one to wear her heart on her sleeve, Allison knew she spent a lot of energy making certain the face she presented to the world said only what she wanted it to and it was almost never appreciated when Allison pointed out she could see through the cracks.

 

“Today’s the last date on my list,” Lydia says. Not softly or angrily, just matter-of-fact, like it’s a fate she’s resigned herself to.

 

Allison remembers the list, remembers sitting down with Lydia after her first day at Beacon Hills High in Lydia’s tastefully decorated bedroom in front of a meticulously organized spreadsheet looking at her future in rows and columns and cells. Lydia had been bright and warm and just a little haughty when she explained that she’d been waiting for Allison since she was fourteen, had known her for three years before that.

 

It wasn’t until later, when Allison began to trust herself with Lydia and Lydia had relearned this new old Allison that Lydia shared with her how hard those years alone had been, how she hadn’t understood what Allison meant to her until she was gone and was essentially devastated until she came back. Lydia had had to process it all by herself and all she’d had to hold on to was that last day in the clearing when Allison had kissed her for the first time.

 

“You'll get dehydrated." Allison blinks as Lydia’s voice breaks through the haze of her thoughts and tries not to focus so hard on Lydia’s mouth while she talks, hears her say “Here.”

 

Lydia twists open an Arrowhead bottle and holds it out so Allison has to stretch over the meager distance between them to reach it. Allison is careful when grabbing the bottle so their fingers don't brush; she looks away to drink, feeling Lydia's eyes on her throat as she swallows. Allison is breathing hard by the time the bottle is empty, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, tries to ignore the beating of her frantic heart; it's suddenly, insufferably, in her throat. 

 

Lydia doesn't look away.

 

It takes some effort, each time and every visit, for Allison to reconcile the many versions of time she finds herself in, the countless stages of places and people. Vaguely, Allison is aware that Lydia here, now, can't be more than fourteen. Allison understands on some level that the Lydia who spent lunch today with one hand on Allison’s knee under the table, who drove her home from class and sang along to the car radio, who sat comfortably and companionably pressed against her side during a BHHS lacrosse game, _that_ Lydia is somewhere ahead of Allison. _That_ Lydia is back where Allison came from, when Allison left her.

 

This Lydia, _this_ Lydia, is awkward and trying to hide it behind an unhealthy dose of bravado, too much hair spray, and a new manicure. For the first time since they met—for Allison, anyway—Allison feels the scales tipping in her favor. 

 

She doesn't think about it, it's an impulse, Allison acts on it before she can think to do otherwise; she rises up on her knees and cups the back of Lydia’s neck with her hand, meets Lydia's lips with her own and absolutely  _revels_ in Lydia's surprise. Allison lifts her other hand to rest on the side of Lydia's face, sweeps a thumbs across the line of her jaw, and Lydia sighs right into Allison's waiting mouth.

 

"I wasn't expecting that," Lydia admits when they break apart. She's a bit breathless, a bit pink, and Allison has to bite her own lip to keep from moving in again at the sight of it. She settles instead for taking Lydia's hand, contents herself with wrapping her fingers around Lydia's and holding tight like it's enough to keep her here.

 

"I figured that was where we were heading, right?"

 

Lydia grins, and it's a smug, wicked little thing: "You tell me."

 

\--

 

_But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don’t really resent it._

from a love letter to Virginia Woolf from Vita Sackville-West

 

\--

 

**Allison is 34 and 16**

 

There’s a vague thud that sounds from the second bedroom down the hall when Allison is in the middle of washing dishes. She stills for a moment and strains to hear until she catches the familiar sounds of drawers opening and closing, the rustling of bed linens being rifled through. Allison shakes her hands dry over the full sink and goes to greet herself.

 

“Allison?” she calls, more to announce her presence than anything else. She’d been alone in the apartment until two minutes ago. Besides, she thinks she remembers this.

 

No one responds, but Allison is certain what she’ll find when she pushes the door open. There’s Allison, about half her age, standing uncomfortably at the foot of the guest bed with a sheet clutched in front of her to cover her nakedness.

 

“Hey,” Allison says to this younger, panicked version of herself. “You all right?”

 

“Yeah, sorry, I didn’t—Is it okay that I’m here? I can go.”

 

Allison feels her face slipping into a look of concern and immediately draws it back. She remembers this age, how little control she had, how much she hated the travelling, and how she hated pity even more. She didn’t run into herself a lot after high school, not after Lydia, but Allison is pretty sure which visit this is.

 

“You’re fine, it’s fine, let me grab you something to put on.” Allison ducks across the hall into the master bedroom and grabs the first thing from the drawer she keeps sleep shirts in. When she gets back, Allison is still standing there clutching the sheet like a toga around herself and looking like she wishes she were anywhere else. “Here you go.”

 

Allison takes it from her and turns her back before letting the sheet go and pulling the shirt on, as if she has something to hide, as if _this_ Allison has something Allison hasn’t seen every day of her life.

 

When Allison turns back around, she’s gripping the hem of the shirt and holding it away from herself so that the faded writing across her chest can be read from her vantage point. It says “MIT” in Cardinal red. She looks up at Allison and raises both eyebrows like a question. Allison lifts her own eyebrows in response, cocks her head to one side for good measure.

 

“Is this—Whose shirt is this?”

 

Allison turns on her heel and heads back out of the room so Allison has no choice but to follow her. She doesn’t look back, but she can hear Allison’s bare feet padding softly on the carpet behind her. She goes back to the dishes she left in the sink and throws a dishtowel in Allison’s direction and doesn’t answer Allison’s question.

 

“I’ll wash, you dry,” she says instead.

 

Allison does as instructed without protest, but carelessly and with as much indignation as one can muster when toweling off carefully matched Corelle dinnerware.

 

“Whose shirt is it?” Allison asks again once the last of the plates are stacked carefully into cupboards and all the forks, knives, and spoons are fit neatly into drawers. She’s still got ahold of the dishtowel and is wringing it compulsively with both hands.

 

Allison doesn’t mean to roll her eyes at herself, but she does it before she can think not to. She doesn’t remember being this dense, and maybe is a little more curt than is necessary when she replies. “It’s Lydia’s, you _know_ it’s Lydia’s. Why are you asking me when you already know the answer?”

 

She flinches a little and deflates visibly and her eyes become suspiciously shiny. Allison makes a sympathetic noise in the back of her throat and takes a step forward, but Allison, who is young and fragile and too proud to be comforted, holds up both hands in front of her, brandishing the dishtowel like a shield she can ward off all of Allison’s good intentions with.

 

Allison feels guilty then because she remembers when this Allison must’ve come from, when things with her parents were falling apart and things with Scott were getting weird and Lydia felt like the only constant she had in her life. Allison remembers being terrified that Lydia would get fed up with it and stop wasting her time waiting on yet another person she couldn’t depend on to be around when Lydia needed them.

 

“Just tell me I don’t screw it up,” Allison says.

 

They have a rule about this. From the first time they met, the first time Allison travelled, this was rule number one. No spoilers, no reassurances, absolutely no promises. _You gotta live it yourself_ , is what Allison at forty-two told Allison at nine-and-a-half. But Allison at sixteen is lonely and afraid looking for any kind of hope to cling to. Besides, Allison thinks now, she’s already told her anyway.

 

In front of her Allison is starting to disappear so she reaches out and grips what’s still visible of her hand, squeezes gently, and promises ardently before she’s gone: “You don’t screw it up.”

 

\--

 

_Describe it? Describe what it's like to spend your whole life waiting? It's exactly that. It's waiting. It's waiting for the day, the hour, the minute when she leaves. Then it's waiting for the one when she comes back. That's what it is. It's living a life composed entirely of nows and thens and wills and won'ts, of what-ifs and why-nots. It's being here, always just here, while Allison is constantly there._

 

\--

 

**Lydia is 16 and Allison is 17**

Lydia is checking her lipstick in the rearview mirror while the car idles in Allison’s driveway. She checks the time on her phone again and debates call the landline when Allison still hasn’t emerged from the front door. Allison has a habit of loosing her phone, her keys, her clothes when she travels, so trying to catch her on her cell is always a crapshoot.

 

Lydia glances up at the house again and sighs. She’s going to have to get out and knock. It’s drizzling a bit and she’s just had her hair blow-out, plus she doesn’t really want to brave crossing the wet lawn in stilettos and risk her heels sinking into the muddy grass, but she thinks it might be rude to honk. Lydia’s got her fingers on the door handle when the Argents’ front door swings open and Allison pops gamely out if it. Allison doesn’t hesitate before sprinting across the lawn, but she, Lydia notes, is wearing combat boots.

 

Allison pulls open the door and all but throws herself into the passenger seat. It smells like rain and shoe leather and Allison's perfume when Allison bangs the door shut. She’s a little breathless and a little flushed and Lydia is a little speechless at the sight of her. She recovers quickly and clears her throat, flips her hair over one shoulder. Before Lydia can muster up a greeting or reprimand about tardiness Allison stretches across the center console and presses her lips to the corner of Lydia’s mouth.

 

Lydia blinks, makes a completely undignified shocked noise she’d probably be embarrassed about if Allison hadn’t just kissed her for the first time in two years. Allison grins this stupid, dopey grin at her and leans in again, catching Lydia full on the mouth. She’s still smiling when she sits back into her seat and starts to fumble her seatbelt on.

 

“It’s about time,” Lydia manages. It comes out a lot softer than she intends so she swallows to steady her voice. Her hands are clammy and shaking when she uses them to re-adjust her mirror before backing smoothly down the driveway. “What took you so long?”

 

Lydia catches Allison’s eye just then and Allison lets out this burst of air that’s almost laughter, Lydia finds herself smiling in any case because she knows Allison knows she’s taking about this morning and she’s talking about the day they met; she’s talking about every day since and every day coming. She doesn’t want a _sorry_ , exactly, it’s not as though she’s angry, but the answering smile she gets from Allison is small and apologetic and Lydia recognizes it from the countless times Allison’s disappeared on her and the countless times she’s come back.

 

Allison pulls one of Lydia’s hands off the steering wheel and draws it to her lap between both her own. When Lydia looks over at the light on Mason and Church Allison is smiling full and certain.

 

“I got held up,” she says. “I’m here now.”


End file.
